Tag Archives: results

Results are easy and almost always guaranteed when your’e working with beginners.

Literally everything works due to their level of noobness.

As a PT/Coach if you don’t get a beginner to a goal then you might need to reevaluate your career choice.

The struggle comes from those who’ve perhaps been in the gym for a while and have achieved results once or perhaps a few times before they take up your services.

These are the one that need you to delve in to the realms of fitness far deeper.

Personally I split it in to 4 pieces.

1 – Their Why

2 – End Goal

3 – The Emotional Need

4 – Willingness to Sacrifice

Let us break them down.

1 – Their Why

Helping someone is easy, however helping someone reveal or understand why they want to do X,Y or Z is an entirely different matter.

Having a cast iron ‘why’ will keep people moving forwards because each time something crops up you can ask them if they remember why they’re doing what they’re doing (as in why they’re working towards the goal).

2 – End Goal

You’d do well to look at this in a big picture sense.

We might even say it’s the perfect outcome they they desire that links unquestionably with their why.

Once you know the big picture you can start to pick out the smaller pieces of it to help set the small milestones as this will allow those quick wins and little hits of emotional sustenance and validation that is sought.

A goal is more or a leaking tap dripping single water droplets every hour to fill a bath tub than it is using a hoe to fill a paddling pool.

3 – The Emotional Need

We do what we do because we want to feel a certain way.

Emotion drives many people, it is linked with their reason why they do what they do. The need is to fill a hole that they consider almost as important as air to breathe.

If the need isn’t being met then other methods will be sought to fill this void like emotional eating or some other such debauchery.

Knowing what/how/why people currently feel and more importantly why they want that to change and what it will mean to them is the key element many miss.

4 – Willingness to Sacrifice

There can be no change without change, and their can be no real change without sacrifice.

Such might be going out 2 nights a week on the lash instead of 5, or forgoing the tub of ice cream each night before bed and so on.

The only problem is that people get very emotionally attached to their habits and to sacrifice them causes quite a nasty feeling (usually loss).

When working with beginners they’re ready to give things up because they see it as only short term, then they revert back to their old ways and expect the results to stay; this is not how change works.

This is where working with those who’ve repeated this cycle become difficult as they’ve gotten trapped in no longer wanting to sacrifice anything while still desiring change.

We can relate this back to why they want said change, and if it is more or less important to their habit/thing that needs to be sacrificed.

You’ll often find there is an emotional attachment/need to the sacrifice in question which then leads us to asking which is more important, the thing or the end goal.

Some will say “Why can’t they have both?” and put simply it is because they just can’t due to conflict.

As the old saying goes, you can’t make an omelet with out breaking any eggs.

Same goes for achieving a goal, somethings got to give.

This is how you can start to take those troubled clients forwards.

Understand it’s less about the training at this stage (although that is of course important) and more about the mindset required.

Everyone, you don’t have to go to the gym to achieve health/fitness/aesthetically related results.

😮😮😮😮😮

A shocking revelation.

Let us look at some alternatives to making the perhaps repetitive and dull decision to train a little more interesting.

You will find that all of these activities have the body working as it is meant to; a collective unit.

That body of yours is meant to work in synergy, not isolation with I am aware goes against the classic body building notion of the 70’s which has stuck, however it is true.

Given this little nugget of information, here are some things you may enjoy that will get you results that are far better than you’ve currently achieved trying to follow the classic way or Arnold.

– Martial Arts (Judo, JiuJitsu, Boxing, Capoeira, etc)

– Climbing

– Calisthenics

– Parkour

– Swimming

– OCR activities

– Kettlebells 😂, could’t resist

Finally there is one thing that has proven itself over the millennia to forge a body of solid granite and here is the best bit; you get PAID to do it.

Seriously, how epic is that.

You ready for it?

Getting a job in Manual Labour, or a Physical Job.

*If you don’t fancy a job in this you can mimic it by having various odd objects in your garden to lift, carry, put over your head, etc. That will be similarly as effective.

Seriously, that is not a joke.

If you take a second to think logically you’ll find we are far weaker than our ancestors because of the rather luxurious lifestyle we can now lead.

Many moons ago you’d find people would spend all day lifting variable loads from point A to point B to accomplish a task, they got fairly muscular and strong from it too, and there was also a hefty amount of conditioning that found it’s way in to this work as well.

Being able to shift several tonnes of shingle in less than a few hours is one heck of endurance feat if you have no slow down in pace.

Keeping all of this in mind it can hep you understand what role the gym really plays for people in various walks of life.

For people who work in the manual field it’s for extra aesthetics, if they feel inclined.

To office workers it’s for their health and looks.

In regards to athletes it is a necessary evil for this job to improve their performance.

Just worth remembering.

Back to my original point, you don’t NEED to hit the gym to get the results you desire, there are far more ways to do it and a lot of them are more social and fun because you learn a lot along the way.

Just because the majority is doing something, it doesn’t mean you have to follow the crowd.

When it comes to training mindset the thought of ‘harder is better’ is a common one and while no one is saying that hard graft doesn’t get results, what people think it is and what it actually is are two different things.

The easy sign that you’re not applying the required hard graft in the correct way is a simple one – the result you have.

These can be body composition related, strength/performance biased, emotional and many other things, however for the sake of the classic fitness goal of ‘lose weight and tone up’ we shall go with your body composition – how you look.

A simpel question to ascertain if you’re putting in the desired/required hard work:

How do you feel you look?

Good, bad, indifferent or somewhere in between, essentially it comes down to how you perceive yourself and if you have achieved what you set out to.

A lot of people will claim that ‘looking good’ is subjective and I agree with them, it is.

So if you feel your’e working as hard as you possibly can and yet still haven’t achieved your goal, them perhaps it might be time to rethink what you are doing.

Most will go down the route of “I must train even harder.” and while that might be what is needed, I will tell you from experience that for the average person 10/10 times it’s not and what is really required is training smarter/productively.

The more is better, harder is key philosophy comes from athletes and people at the highest level.

Each persona t the top talks of their hard work and dedication, sacrifice and commitment, which is all true, however the sheer amount they are doing now has taken then decades to build up to, not months like many of you weekend warriors have been training.

While everyone enjoys a good hard session, you’d want perhaps one of those a week, two medium effort sessions and a light session, if you trained 4 days a week that is.

Essentially the older thought process of a Hard-Medium-Easy training rotation (or fatigue accumulation and deloading) is a wise one to adopt.

Too often people are in a rush, seeking that quick fix, that instant result, training doesn’t work like that, life doesn’t work like that and this is something you ned to accept.

Your training should have a purpose, does it?

I have another question for you, what is it about working hard, leaving the gym dead that resonates with you?

Why do you feel this is what you need to do?

It would be great to have a small insight in to why you think as you do because over the years I’ve learnt that more isn;t ever really better, it’s just more.

How stressed are you on a scale of 1-a large glass of wine please, and leave the bottle.

Morning All,

When it comes to stress it’s easy to get caught up in it, to find ourselves dragged out to sea by the tide of our own drama.

While stress will inevitably be there, how we react and deal with that stress is down to us, really, it is.

Take this for example.

You receive bad news, as such you can,

A – get angry and put your fist through a door, thus making yourself more stressed.

B – take a deep breath, walk away form it and come back to deal with it when you’ve calmed down.

In both instances the stressor hasn’t disappeared, it hasn’t changed, however what has changed is how YOU decided to react to it.

One piles more stress on top and doesn’t get you anywhere, the other gives you time to think and perhaps the thought capacity to find a solution and realise it’s not as bad as you initially thought.

The above (point A) is a real life example of an old client who had been training consistently and not made any progress on the scales, that was down t their poor eating habits by the way.

Their reaction did them no favours apart from stressing them out further, it took quite a while before they eventually calmed down enough (several days later) to have a logical conversation and start to address some lifestyle habits that were perhaps not the most conducive to success.

We did have to overcome the denial, and blatant diversion of responsibility first before they accepted their own fault in the lack of progress, however we got there in the end.

It is human nature to quickly justify their poor choices, habits or reactions, we all go through it at times and what separates those who move on from those who don’t is their ability to acknowledge a stressor for what it is and take control of it, instead of letting it take control of them.

Give the above some thought, perhaps even write down some times you’ve overreacted, knowledge your fault in it all, then let it go, move on and continue with your life.

Training split considerations for optimal frequency base don how many days you can train per week.

Did you know that it is considered optional that you train a movement/muscle every 3-5 days. Of course this is for most average people, if you get someone who is godly strong then the rules change.

Here is a guide for the kind of strength levels to look out for based on the classic big 3 lifts.

If you can Squat 5 plates, Bench 4 & Deadlift 6, then you can probably look at a training frequency of hitting each movement every 5-7 days.

If you can’t hit those numbers ten every 3-5 is more than likely better for you.

Okay, the split considerations.

2 days per week –

Full Body for most people.

If your crazy strong then a Push/Pull split will do you well.

3 days per week –

– Full Body

– Upper/Lower

– Push/Pull

Crazy strong = Pull/Push/Legs

4 Days per week –

– Full Body

– Upper/Lower

– Push/Pull

– PPL

Crazy Strong = Pull, Push, Legs, Push & Pull

When you start to get in to the realms of 5-6days a week training you’ll find that a Pull-Push-Legs or Upper/Lower split works well for most people. The Crazy Strong ones may have heavy & light days, however you’ll often find that people of that level of strength train 3-4 days per week on average as the amount of stress they are placing on their body demands a lot of recovery.

Give most of us have real lives and jobs many are looking at 2-4 days in the gym per week, as such Full body or Push/Pull would be my go to recommendations.

If you plan a full body routine think about these movement patterns:

Loaded Carry, Squat, Hinge, Pull, Push – use a different movement for each of these every session, for example, 3 days a week would have three pushes – Incline Press, Close Grip Bench & Overhead Press for example, you get the idea.

A push/pull split is easy to program, think about it in terms of squat, presses for push, and deadlift, rows etc for pull, stick with that philosophy and you won’t go far wrong.

Before we go I have a quick thing for you to think about, have a solid strength related goal in mind as this will help you actually make some progress in the gym.

A classic is this:

Press one plate, bench two plates, squat three, deadlift four, this is for most chaps, ladies can match this or perhaps aim for 3/4’s, it’s all about what you want at the end of the day.

To most people this will be enough strength for them to live a good life and with the proper nutritional protocol love pretty decent as well.

The only thing that really separates adults from children is the simple truth that adults do things they really don’t want to because they’ve not really got any other choice.

Well, maybe there is a choice however the alternative for an adult not doing things they must do yet don’t want to can be far more costly than that of the plight of youth.

In this world there is nothing we truly have to do, however there are things that as we age it’s easier to just do them instead of suffering the consequences.

It’s often said that we have ‘free will’ & ‘freedom of chocie’ which is true, yet people seem to think that this means freedom from consequence, which it doesn’t and you’d do well to remember that.

I will say it again:

Freedom of choice doesn’t mean freedom from consequence.

Keeping the above in mind let us now apply this to fitness.

As a youth there are things we know are better for us to do in regards to nutrition & training that will improve our long term health.

As a youth we can choose not to do these things, however we will reap what we sow and eventually as an adult you might just find yourself overweight, weak, sick and basically a shadow of your former self.

As an adult you may now think “I better get in shape” yet because of being older now it is harder, perhaps not for the physical reasons you may think, more the mental reasons.

The mental reasons?

Yep, you’ve become accustomed to doing what you want and bollocks to everyone else, it’s your life, your body and so on. The younger you may have had some wiggle room, the older you doesn’t.

As such there will now be things that you MUST do, yet you don’t really want to, and normally it means you don’t, why?

Because fuck responsibility, that’s why.

Of course all of the above is nothing more than words if you take no action.

Some will read this post today and do the adult thing of looking at themselves in the mirror and accepting that enough is enough, it’s time to adult for real instead of playing at it.

The understanding that comes with maturity, the wisdom that comes with age if boiled down to one sentence would be this –

In the end it’s better to do the things you don’t want to do now before they become the things you needed to do years ago.

As strange as that sounds you’d be surprised how common it actually is because a lot of people thrive off of it.

Think about a uni student who has a paper to put in, do they do in little by little over their 2 month deadline or do they let the submission date creep closer and closer until finally they rush around like a headless chicken to get it done.

In this beautifully modern world of ours we have been somewhat conditioned to believe that being busy is good, that to run yourself ragged or even spin your wheels is better than doing nothing.

This sounds a tad silly to me.

I’m sure you have had a manager who wants everyone to look busy, to be doing something, even if there is nothing productive to be done they will say – “I will find you something to do.”.

Yea, no thanks.

If what you are doing isn’t productive, will lead to future productive or positive/necessary outcomes then that energy can be best placed elsewhere and focused on things that are actually important to you.

While I can understand the panic that comes over people when they have nothing to do, it’s a poor mindset to have.

Here is how I look at things through a filter of three questions.

1 – Is it important?

2 – Will it become important or lead to something important?

3 – If not important, is it something I want or need to do?

Quite simple really.

There are plenty of people in this world to stress over the minutia, the question is this; do you really want to be one of them?

If there are other things in your life that have a higher level of priority, give more focus to them because you can achieve some great training related results with 2-3 sessions a week in the gym.

Seriously, you can do it.

True you’d have to be focused in your 2-3, 45-60min training sessions, however it can be done.

The same is true for people who have some kit at home and can crack out 30min sessions almost daily or perhaps 3-5 of them, the only limiting factor is their inherent laziness and excuses.

Today I would like yo to think about something.

Time.

I would like you to think about time and how much of it you waste doing arbitrary things, then choose to complain that you lack time to do things.

Yes, you know what I mean.

Most people have plenty of time, what they lack is conviction, desire and drive.

You can achieve so much with very little, you just lack the crucial element between your two ears to do so because like most people, you’re a little bit lazy and enjoy the sins of Gluttony & Sloth.

Fuck it….

Here are three things you can do at home, each for 30min, if you alternated them and aimed for 3-5 of these sessions a week you’d become stronger, learner, healthier and perhaps happier in yourself too.

1 – Fill a bag with Sand, pick it up, put it over your head, bring it back to your chest and carry it 20m, repeat for 30min, resting as needed in-between reps (keep the rest down).

^^ Go for half bodyweight for starters. You can get what you need (less the sand) from here:

Firstly I’d like to say this; if you have any legitimate medical conditions that have been diagnosed (hormonal issues, nutrient deficiencies, age related illness etc) then you need to listen to your specialist and work through your health issues, I wish you a speedy recovery.

If you haven’t had the above officially diagnosed then here are the 3 top reasons for your slow metabolism.

Oh, before that though.

A ‘slow metabolism’ in healthy adults isn’t really a thing, it’s just an excuse for people that need a convenient excuse for their excess body fat that people won’t question, that said I’m sure there will be the coveted ‘exception’ who disagrees with what will be written below because, reasons.

You’ll find a lot of people are certain that they ave a slow metabolism and I’m going to tell the three main causes of it.

1 – Sub optimal amounts of lean muscle tissue

2 – A sedentary lifestyle

3 – Excessive daily calorie consumption

All of these lead to your ‘slow metabolism’.

Yep, sucks doesn’t it.

Since I’m nice I will give you three ways you can reverse your slow metabolism.

1 – Lift weights & get stronger

2 – Spend less time sat on your ass and increase your NEAT (non exercises activity thermogenesis) by moving more each day

3 – Try not to eat like a child that has thrown a tempter tantrum all to get bag of sweets, aim for more nutrient dense foods instead 🙂

There you have it, what causes a slow metabolism and how to reverse it.